


The Puppet And The Brute

by UkiTheMaid



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Bro as a Puppet, Developing Relationship, I suppose it's fantasy in a way, M/M, POV Second Person, Possible Body Horror, Thoughts of Self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 19:06:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UkiTheMaid/pseuds/UkiTheMaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU and written for HSO. Bro and Dad are part of a “freak show”. Bro as a living-doll, and Dad as the ‘strongest man in the world’ with a twist. Neither of them are very happy with their lives though. Told from Bro’s PoV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Puppet And The Brute

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah. This was written for the second round of HSO, where the prompt was "monsters".
> 
> I hope you guys like it <3

Ever since you can remember, you’ve always looked like this.

You’ve always been this… whatever you are really. You aren’t ever sure yourself.

For all effects, you are merely a doll that came to life, for God only knows what reason. Your skin is covered on what appears to be pale-colored porcelain, and because of that you can never really ‘feel’ the texture of anything your body comes in contact with.

Where your joints were supposed to be, there are weird, doll-like ball joints that you would rather not talk much about. Sure they give you the gift of moving yours joints any way you please, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that people are always “repelled” by your looks.

What bothers you the most about your appearance is the horrific – in your own terms – marionette-like mouth you have. It’s so weird whenever you need to talk. So you refrain from doing that, as to not weird out others even more.

As for your eyes, you never really blink, and because of that you prefer to wear dark shades that obscure your eyes, so then you don’t have to deal with explaining people that you have no eyelids.

And while you are at it, it’s a good time to add the fact that you don’t really need anything that could be considered as common “needs”. You don’t need to eat, you don’t need to drink, you don’t need sleep… Hell, you don’t even breathe. You could be submerged on a tank filled with water for hours, and you would come out of there just fine.

You are alive and at same time… you really aren’t. The only thing that looks slightly normal about yourself is your hair, but you can’t really say how it feels to the touch because you can’t exactly feel it yourself.

And that’s how you ended up in this cruddy “freak show”, among others weirdos like you, like that girl that can eat nails, that other guy who can walk on fire… and him.

At first, he was just another eccentricity. Another stupid act for that shitty travelling circus. You heard his name was Egbert, but in the beginning you really didn’t make an effort to memorize that.

His gimmick? He can’t actually control his strength. Unless he’s concentrating real hard, anything he touches becomes crumpled, smashed, or worst, depending on what he’s touching. He’s like the ‘strongest man in the world’ act gone all kinds of wrong.

The first thing that crossed your mind when he arrived was how he could be your path out of the miserable “life” you were leading. Since you have no human needs, you are essentially immortal, but maybe, just maybe, if you asked him nicely to crush your head with his bare hands he could put you out of your boring existence. You guessed that not having feelings came with the whole ‘I’m a doll’ package.

But then, something changed, and it was so weird at first, you actually had no idea how to react to it.

You remember that you were trying to think about how you would go around asking him to just turn you into a pile of smashed porcelain on the floor. You were actually going through with that, but from what you heard, despite his weird ability, Egbert wasn’t really keen on hurting others. So it would probably take a lot of persuasion to get him to turn you into dust.

You began hanging around him, never really saying anything, just observing.

And before you knew it, you pitied him. But not in a way that made you look down on him. It was more like… you sympathized with him. The same way you could never really feel anything through your skin, he could never really touch anyone with the fear of hurting them. Apparently, you were both doomed to an existence void of real contact with other people.

You didn’t mind that at all… Him on the other hand…

When you first talked to him, with your plan still in mind, you were actually surprised he didn’t think you looked weird. In fact, he seemed fascinated, and you could see it in his eyes he was compelled to touch you, but couldn’t really do it.

And for the first time in your life, you felt sad. You wouldn’t say you felt pained, but you certainly felt a strange weight on your chest. You never really imagined there was anything inside you that could be affected in such way, but when you saw him looking at you with that almost yearning look upon his face, you couldn’t just be completely indifferent about it.

You decided it was better to abort your plan for a while. You could always ask him to crush you at a later date.

The only thing is that you never went back to that.

In a sense, he was as lonely as you. He didn’t “look” weird or threatening, but as soon as people got to know about his lack of control over his strength, they weren’t very enthusiastic about hanging around him, despite the fact that you’ve never even seen him approach people. If you were him, you wouldn’t hesitate tearing off the arms of whatever bastard thought you were too dangerous to be around. That would give them a reason to fear you.

But despite everything, he was always so nice, amiable and… gentle, if that was even possible for someone like him.

Putting it simple, his body wasn’t gentle, but his personality was. And you couldn’t really bring up the subject of how uninteresting your life was and how you wanted him, of all people, to just end it all. You just couldn’t do it.

Days passed, and you decided to stay around him more and more. And from pity, your feelings progressed to absolute empathy, to the point that, yes, you wanted to be around him, you wanted to talk to him and listen to what he had to say. You related to him in so many levels, that being with him made your existence a bit more “worthy”.

You could sense that, whenever he talked to you, he looked quite happy. And in a way you felt contented too. That was the first time you were actually having any sort of connection to anyone, and it felt so good.

After a while, you caught yourself helping him out with some of his daily tasks. The fact that it took him so much effort to control his strength made even the simplest tasks, like putting on clothes and picking up a fork to eat, a chore, and to feel a bit more useful, you decided to help him out with those.

By lending him a hand with such things, you got really close to each other. And the more time you spent together, the more fascinated you grew towards him.

In the beginning, you didn’t notice much about his actual looks. You were too busy being impressed by how he didn’t push you away and you were far too mesmerized by his personality to care about anything else. But when you did start to pay attention to how he looked, you admit you got a bit dumbstruck.

You didn’t even know you could get like that, but lo and behold, there were you, paying attention to the muscles of his body and how they twitched as he tried to keep his force at bay, staring into his dark-blue eyes and just how much they told you about how he was feeling, watching his face intently as he spoke to you and you took in every line of expression on his face.

He was so expressive and you envied him so much because of that. You actually felt terrible about the fact that your face couldn’t really translate your feelings. Whenever you saw him drift into a sadder state of mind, you wanted so badly to smile at him and make him feel better, but the most you could do was something that barely resembled that, and it looked way too forced. So you refrained from doing it altogether. Your words had to be enough to comfort him.

One night, after midnight, when you are sitting inside his small, cramped dressing room – which was more like a wagon, and it was just a little bit bigger than yours – you watch him talk. He’s telling you some random tale about his life before he joined this freak show, but you are barely paying attention. You are looking at him, but your mind is somewhere else entirely.

You are trying to imagine just how his skin feels to the touch. It must be warm, even if you don’t have a fucking clue of how “warm” actually feels like. But it must be pleasant. You imagine how nice it would be to hold him, and have him hold you back, and just stay like that for a while. You never really noticed how you missed actual human contact until you met him. He makes you long for it so much, and you hate him so much for stirring such feelings inside you.

He suddenly stops talking, looking at you, and he asks if you are OK. You probably looked more vacant then you usually do.

You straight out lie and tell him you are fine. You can’t tell him how much this whole thing is eating you inside out. How is it even possible for you to feel these things? Your body doesn’t change a bit. Your heart-rate doesn’t accelerate – you would need to have one to begin with – your chest doesn’t rise and fall rapidly when he looks at you, your cheeks don’t flush… nothing in your exterior shows how much you are craving him, and yet you seem to be burning inside.

But he sees right through your unchanging face that you are lying, and he presses further, asking you what’s wrong.

You lower your eyes, which is almost all you can do to translate your present feelings, and you tell him in the most sincere tone possible how you wish you could feel how his skin feels like. How you wanted to have the gift of touch even if only for a minute, just to know how warm and comforting he felt.

And suddenly, just like that, he’s crying.

Your mind instantly races, and you wonder if you said something bad. You honestly think you fucked up your entire relationship with that man.

He then proceeds to tell you about how much he wants to be able to touch you and yet, he’s so afraid, because he doesn’t want to hurt you. He tells you that whenever your fingers brush against his skin when you are helping him get dressed, that sends a good shiver all over his body, and that your touch feels really cool against his skin.

You are pretty sure that, if you actually breathed, those words would take your breath away. You know because, for a moment, you can do nothing but stare, and your mind draws a blank. Your mind is the only reliable thing inside your body and you can’t even use that at the moment.

Acting out without thinking, you pull on his wrist and put his hand on his lap, your fingers softly tracing the palm of his hand. He’s suddenly tense and barely moves. You try to ignore that.

“I can still touch you.” Your voice is mild and you try almost in vain to soften your facial expression as much as you can. But he seems to understand that, as you watch his muscles relax a bit. You like seeing him like that a lot better.

You lean closer, your fingers running up his arm, until his neck, and finally they reach his face. You can’t feel anything about his face, but you guess that his chin must be a bit rough by now. It’s been a while since you helped him shave. Oh God, you would give anything to feel even a single hair of his brush against you.

And you can see his fingers twitching, and you know he’s holding back so hard the urge to hold you, or even just put a hand over yours and just keep it there. He’s tearing up as much as you. The only difference is that he shows it. So much, that he starts crying again.

“C’mon, don’t look so sad. I… don’t like seeing you like that.” You want so badly to just tear up with him, cry and let all these things you are feeling out, but you can’t really do it. Your body doesn’t let you do that. The same way his body doesn’t let him lay a finger on you.

He suddenly starts to go on about how much he wants to be able to hold you, and just have you in his arms, and intertwine his fingers with yours… Damn, he even goes on about how he wishes he could kiss you, and your hand never leaves his face during the entire talk. You need to make him understand that you feel the exact same, because your face sure as hell won’t tell.

When he’s done talking, you place your fingers over his quivering lip, trying to comfort him the best way you can. You aren’t very good at this though. You never really interacted with people all that much, and considering your limitations…

He seems to calm down though, and that’s more than you expected him to do.

It downs on you that both your existences are really, really shitty. But you feel even worse about his position. You can’t feel anything anyway, so you don’t really know what you are missing out. But he knows. He knows how things feel like. And it must hurt so fucking badly to know that, but not be able to do anything fearing you might crush whoever is with you.

You put your arms around him suddenly and without warning, and he freezes in place as you expect. You let him settle down on his own, before you tell him you’ll be near him, no matter what. That it doesn’t matter you can’t feel anything. That you are really fucking happy that he even considered any kind of interaction with a freak like you.

And you feel this weird pain inside your chest, and it’s probably thanks to the turmoil of feelings you are experiencing now. You never felt so many things at the same time and you are pretty sure your brain is overloading.

“You are not a freak.” He says under his breath, and you literally can’t believe what he just said. He’s telling you, a doll-like abomination devoid of human needs and sensations, that you are not a freak.

You. Of all things.

You feel that pain in your chest stronger than ever, and you just tighten your hold on him, your face buried against his neck and your fingers pulling on the fabric of his shirt. You don’t even know how to answer to that with words.

You pull away from him, and you look him in the eyes. Oh God, why are those fucking eyes of his so gorgeous? You place both hands on his face, your own face just a few inches away from his. Curse him for making you crave so many things you know you’ll never be able to experience. And the worst part is that you will never be able to experience those with him.

Putting your forehead against his, you tell him you’ll both be OK. You know it’s a lie. He knows it’s a lie. Neither of you will ever “OK” with these piece of shit cages you call “bodies”. Him specially.

Still he doesn’t call bullshit on what you just said. That’s actually really comforting. It’s good to know that you are not only aware of the fact that this isn’t happening, but you are OK with pretending things will turn out fine. Any other way, and the both of you would probably go insane.

One more time, for good measure, you tell him you’ll be by his side, no matter. That you will help him with anything he wants to, and that whenever he wants to, you are more than OK with touching him so then he doesn’t need to be all hesitant and fearful about it. And even if he doesn’t say anything, the look on his face tells you more than any words could.

You tell him that he should sleep, and he just nods in agreement as you move away from him, that weird forced smile on your face. God, you just want to show him you are happy. How hard is that?

The brief chuckle he lets out when he looks at your face makes you feel weird, but good. Well, at least he can find amusement in your struggle.

You tell him good night and close the wagon’s door behind you. And you just stand there for a while, thinking, and trying real hard to think of a world where this whole thing could go down, and make you two happy.

It’s kind of hard, but you try anyway.


End file.
